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A room is available at Arthur Phillip Chambers, an 8-minute walk from the Parramatta Transport Interchange. Chambers is in the centre of the Parramatta Justice Precinct, directly opposite the Sydney West Trial Courts and adjacent to the Family Law Courts, the Children's Court and the Local Court.

All expressions of interest will be dealt with in the strictest confidence. For further enquiries, please contact the clerk, Betty Hor, on (02) 9891 4666 or clerk@apchambers.com.au. Enquiries from readers are welcome.

The Bar Choir will hold a Christmas Concert at St James Church at 5.15pm this evening to raise funds for the Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation. The concert will last for roughly one hour. Donations from attendees will be gratefully received.

The Most Reverend Dr Glenn Davies, Archbishop of Sydney, and the Reverend Andrew Sempell, Rector of St James, invite members of the New South Wales Bar and the judiciary to attend the 2017 Law Term Church Service at St James’ Anglican Church, 173 King Street on Thursday, 2 February 2017 commencing at 10.30am.

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Our speakers share their insights with you in an informal setting conducive to fostering an increase in knowledge and networking prospects, as well as the enrichment of your CPD experience. Our bespoke programs provide a dynamic, relevant and rewarding experience that broadens the mind through a cross-pollination of ideas, across a diverse range of cultures and professions.

As part of the NSW Bar Association’s Reconciliation Action Plan, we host an annual visit from the Indigenous students attending the UNSW pre-law course. This year the visit is on 14 December and starts at 9.00am in the common room. We seek volunteers to attend the morning discussion about life as a barrister and then take several students back to Chambers. A visit to the Supreme Court starts at 12.15 pm and then there is a lunch in the common room.

The objective is to demonstrate to the new law students the role of barristers and to encourage them to see the Bar as a future career option.

We need volunteers. Please come for an enjoyable morning and a rewarding exchange with some aspiring law students.

A room in State Chambers, which will be available at the end of November 2016, is 28 square metres. This natural light filled room is located on the north-east corner of the top floor of 52 Martin Place and features floor to ceiling windows and extensive high quality shelving, cupboards and drawers. The sale price of the room is $20K on a walk in/walk out basis. Included in the sale is: all joinery; furniture; library; and stereo system.

The Floor has 5 senior counsel and 16 junior barristers with practices across a variety of jurisdictions. It is particularly strong in commercial, taxation, common law, constitutional/administrative and employment/industrial.

All enquiries will be treated with the strictest of confidence and should be directed to our Clerk, Fiona Hayden at clerk@statechambers.net

The New Barristers’ committee would like to invite you to attend the December breakfast catch-up at Silks Coffee Shop on Tuesday, 13 December. Drop in for a short (or long) period of time from 8:00am – 9:30am. The Honourable Justice Beech-Jones, Stuart Donaldson SC and Miles Condon SC will be hosting the breakfast.
For RSVP purposes, if you think you might be able to attend please send an email to Danielle Woods.

The New Barristers’ committee would like to invite you to attend the December breakfast catch-up at Silks Coffee Shop on Tuesday, 13 December. Drop in for a short (or long) period of time from 8:00am – 9:30am. The Honourable Justice Beech-Jones, Stuart Donaldson SC and Miles Condon SC will be hosting the breakfast.
For RSVP purposes, if you think you might be able to attend please send an email to Danielle Woods.

The Australian Bar Association will hold its biennial conference in London and Dublin in July 2017. Registrations will open in February 2017, with early bird registration rates offered until 31 March. To register your interest please email conferences@austbar.asn.au The conference program will be available shortly.

The Supreme Court’s DX membership (DX 829 Sydney) has been reinstated for incoming and outgoing mail. The court would like to acknowledge Toll’s willingness to work with the court and its recognition of the needs of the legal profession, especially those in rural and regional NSW.

Many barristers have already added their CVs to their Find a Barrister profiles. Members who have not done so are encouraged to take advantage of the new facility (instructions below).

As previously reported in InBrief, use of find-a-barrister was promoted to in house corporate and government counsel as a means of finding barristers for their particular needs, whether in the context of direct briefing, briefing through external solicitors or as part of implementing the Law Council’s Equitable Briefing Policy at the Association of Corporate Counsel National Annual Conference in Canberra last week.

Members of the clerks association were in attendance and held one on one demonstrations of the Find a Barrister search facility.

The ability to refine a search by reference to the following criteria appear to be useful to in house counsel:

practice area and sub-practice area;

seniority;

willingness to accept direct briefs from in-house counsel;

existence of an attached CV on the barrister’s Find a Barrister profile;

gender.

Members who want their profiles to appear in searches limited by the "attached CV" field need to upload a PDF version of their CV to their find-a-barrister profile.

How to add your CV to your FAB profile - It only takes a few minutes

Log in to the members' section of the Bar Association website, click on MEMBER SIGN IN on the top right hand corner of the home page.

At the SIGN IN page, enter your username and password. In most cases, this will be the same as your CPD video streaming login. If you are unaware of either or both details, click on Unknown username or password? and follow the prompts.

If your sign in is successful, it will say WELCOME [NAME] in the top right corner of the home page.

Click on the cog wheel next to your name. This will take you to the Member Dashboard page.

In the General Details section, click on the "upload your CV" button, browse to find your PDF CV on your system and select it.

The CV will then be automatically uploaded to your Find a Barrister profile.

Members can revise and update their CVs using the same approach as required in the future.

The Women Legal 2017 forum will be held on 7-8 February 2017 at Rydges World Square. Speakers include: Tuanh Nguyen, president of the Asian Australian Lawyers Association; Kingsley Liu, president of the AALA NSW Branch; and Ann-Maree David, president of Australian Women Lawyers. Gender and intersectional diversity will be among topics being addressed. Both men and women are welcome to attend. Members of the NSW Bar Association will receive a discount of $200 for each day of the roundtable conference.

On 7 December 2016, 12 Wentworth Selborne Chambers, in conjunction with the ICC International Court of Arbitration, Stephenson Harwood and Latham & Watkins, will be holding a conference at the Raffles City Convention Centre in Singapore on "Managing International Arbitration with a South East Asian Dimension." The program, with details on how to register for the event, is available here. On 8 December 2016, members of 12 Wentworth Selborne Chambers will also be speaking at Maxwell Chambers in Singapore on "International Arbitration in the Asia Pacific Region: Australia’s Contribution to Regional Jurisprudence". Details of this seminar including how to register, can be found here.

In 1987 Justice Kiefel became the first woman to be appointed QC in the State of Queensland. She served as president of the Queensland Bar Association and was appointed to the Supreme Court of Queensland (1993) and the Federal Court (1994) before she was made a justice of the High Court of Australia in 2007.

Justice Kiefel steps into the position upon the retirement of the Hon Robert French AC, who has led the nation’s highest court since September 2008.

Also announced today was the appointment to the High Court of the Hon Justice James Edelman, who has had a distinguished career at the bar, in academia and on the bench of the Supreme Court of WA and of the Federal Court.

The following have been elected to the Executive of the Law Council of Australia for 2017: President: Fiona McLeod SC; President-elect: Morry Bailes; Treasurer: Arthur Moses SC; Pauline Wright; Konrad de Kerloy; and Geoff Bowyer. Learn more here.

The Hon Michael Walton has been appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. A swearing-in ceremony will be held on Thursday, 8 December 2016 at 9.00am in the Banco Court. Senior Vice-President Arthur Moses SC will speak on behalf of the bar. Barristers should wear wigs and gowns. Senior counsel should wear full-bottomed wigs.

Promoted by CPE Conferences

CPE Conferences’ success as a quality CPD provider is not based on a formula but an exciting kaleidoscope of internationally crafted academic and social programs perfected over the last 23 years by a team of professionals, for professionals.

Our speakers share their insights with you in an informal setting conducive to fostering an increase in knowledge and networking prospects, as well as the enrichment of your CPD experience. Our bespoke programs provide a dynamic, relevant and rewarding experience that broadens the mind through a cross-pollination of ideas, across a diverse range of cultures and professions.

The Law Council of Australia has announced Julian McMahon as the recipient of the 2016 Law Council of Australia President’s Medal. Mr McMahon was recognised for his work over 13 years representing Australians facing the death penalty overseas, such as Van Nguyen in Singapore, George Forbes in Sudan and Chan and Sukumaran in Indonesia. Learn more here.

It's a long-standing tradition that each year the new silks make a donation to one or more charities. The 2016 silks have donated $37,000 to the Katrina Dawson Foundation and $37,000 to the UTS Diversity Access Scholarship Program.

The Industrial Relations Amendment (Industrial Court) Act 2016 will amend the Industrial Relations Act 1996 to abolish the Industrial Court and transfer its functions to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Rules Committee has approved Amendment No 430, setting out the procedure to be followed for applications concerning the contravention of dispute orders and the recovery of civil penalties under the Industrial Relations Act 1996. The amendment was published on the NSW Legislation website last week and will commence on 8 December 2016.